Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-05-23
by club foot and clad with


had created a strange distress in his
dull and vague mind. He had but
one definite idea-''to eat :" but how
to get anything to eat he did not
know
For three whole hours he worried
slowly along the road then, when at
last he caught sight of the village
trees, he quickened his movements.
The first peasant he met and asked
aims, answered him:
''You here again, you old fraud
Seems that I'm never going to get
rid of you p
And Cloche went off. At every
door. he was roughly received, and
turned away without being given any
thing. Patient and persistent, he
nevertheless continued his round.
He could not collect one cent.
Then he visited the farms, sham
bling over the rain-soaked clay of the
fields-sO eXtenuated that he could not
lift his crutches properly. He was
driven from every gate. 1t was only
on those cold and dismal days when
hearts are contracted, when minds
are irritable, when the disposition is
gloomy, when no hand is voluntarily
extended either to give or to help.
When he had visited all the houses
he knew, he let himself fall his whole
length at the edge of ditch beside
the farm yard of Maitre Chiquet. He
''unhung himself, as they used to
say in order to describe the manner
in which he let himself tumble down
between his high crutches by letting
| them slip up through his arms. And
he lay there long time motionless,
tortured by hunger, but too much stu
pefied to really appreciate his fathom-
less misery.
He was waiting for something, he
knew not what, with that vague hope
which constantly persists in each and
all of us. He waited there, at the
corner of that farmyard, for that mys-
terious aid we are always expecting
to receive either from heaven or from
men, without asking how or why or
by whom it is to come. A troop of
black chickens came by, seeking their
nourishment in that earth which nOur-
ishes all creatures. At every second
they pecked at grain or some invis-
| ible insect. and continued their slow,
sure search.
Cloche looked at them without
thinking of anything; then he got
rather into his stomach than into his
head-the idea, or rather the sensa-
ton, that one of those things would
be good to eat roasted over a brush
wood fire.
No suspicion that he was about to
commit theft ever once occurred to
| him. He seized a stone within reach
of his hand, and as he was a skillful
thrOwer, he killed at once with his
stone the nearest chicken.
The rest ran away, swayipg on
their thin legs; and Cloche, climbing
up on his crutches, again began to
hobble after his game, with motions
precisely like those of the chickens.
But just as he came up to where
the little black body lay,with its head
all blood-stained, he received a terri
| BILE shove in the back which obliged
him to let go his crutches, and which
sent him rolling on his face ten yards
away. And Maitre Chiquet, thor
| oughly eXasperated, rushed on the
marauder, beat him furiously, strik-
/ ing like madman-as a robbed peas
ant always humping with
fist and knees all the body of the Grip
pie, who was utterly powerless to de-
fend himself.
The field hands ran up and took a
turn in helping the master to beat the
beggar. Then, when they had all
| beaten and kicked him until they
were tired, they lifted him up and
carried him to the wood-house, and
locked him up there, and sent for the
police
Cloche, bleeding and half dead
with hunger, remained upon the
ground. Evening came, then night,
then morning. All this time he had
not had anything to eat.
About noon the police came, and
opened the door of the wood-house
with all possible precaution, for they
expected resistance, as Maitre Chi
quet had told them the beggar had
made violent attack upon him, and
that he had only been able to defend
himself with extreme difficulty.
One of the gendarmes cried:
'sHere, you get up out of that :"
But Cloche could not move himself.
He tried to hoist his body once more
on his stills and failed. They tho't
it was all feint, a trick, one of the
regular lodges practiced by thieves !;
and the two armed men, seizing him
violently, lifted him upon his crutch-
IS by main force,
His old fear had come upon him
the hereditary fear of the policeman's
yellow sword belt-Iike the fear of
the game in the presence of the hunt
er. the natural fear of the mouse be
fore the cat. And by a superhuman
effort he managed to remain erect.
March % shouted the officer. And
he hobbled along. All the farm peo-